The Poems of Felicia Hemans
was suggested by her brother, and finally decided upon. Though
finished early in 1825, the poem was not published till the following
year, when it was brought out in conjunction with the ‘Lays of Many
Lands,’ and a collection of miscellaneous pieces.”--_Memoir_, p. 81.
“Mrs Hemans may be considered as the representative of a new school
of poetry, or, to speak more precisely, her poetry discovers
characteristics of the highest kind, which belong almost exclusively
to that of latter times, and have been the result of the gradual
advancement, and especially the moral progress of mankind. It is
only when man, under the influence of true religion, feels himself
connected with whatever is infinite, that his affections and powers
are fully developed. The poetry of an immortal being must be of a
different character from that of an earthly being. But, in recurring
to the classic poets of antiquity, we find that in their conceptions
the element of religious faith was wanting. Their mythology was to
them no object of sober belief; and, had it been so, was adapted
not to produce but to annihilate devotion. They had no thought of
regarding the universe as created, animated, and ruled by God’s
all-powerful and omniscient goodness.”--Professor Norton in _Christian
Examiner_.
“We will now say a few words of ‘The Forest Sanctuary;’ but it so
abounds with beauty, is so highly finished, and animated by so
generous a spirit of moral heroism, that we can do no justice to our
views of it in the narrow space which our limits allow us. A Spanish
Protestant flies from persecution at home to religious liberty in
America. He has imbibed the spirit of our own fathers, and his mental
struggles are described in verses, with which the descendants of
the pilgrims must know how to sympathise. We dare not enter on an
analysis. From one scene at sea, in the second part, we will make a
few extracts. The exile is attended by his wife and child, but his
wife remains true to the faith of her fathers.
“‘Ora pro nobis, Mater!’ what a spell
Was in those notes,” etc.
“But we must cease making extracts, for we could not transfer all that
is beautiful in the poem without transferring the whole.”--_North
American Review_, April 1827.
“Mrs Hemans considered this poem as almost, if not altogether, the
best of her works. She would sometimes say, that in proportion to
the praise which had been bestowed upon other of her less carefully
meditated and shorter compositions, she thought it had hardly met with
its fair share of success: for it was the first continuous effort in
which she dared to write from the fulness of her own heart--to listen
to the promptings of her genius freely and fearlessly. The subject was
suggested by a passage in one of the letters of Don Leucadio Doblado,
and was wrought upon by her with that eagerness and fervour which
almost command corresponding results. I have heard Mrs Hemans say,
that the greater part of this poem was written in no more picturesque
a retreat than a laundry, to which, as being detached from the house,
she resorted for undisturbed quiet and leisure. When she read it,
while in progress, to her mother and sister, they were surprised to
tears at the increased power displayed in it. She was not prone to
speak with self-contentment of her own works, but, perhaps, _the one_
favourite descriptive passage was that picture of a sea-burial in the
second canto,--
‘----She lay a thing for earth’s embrace,’ etc.
“The whole poem, whether in its scenes of superstition--the Auto da
Fè, the dungeon, the flight, or in its delineation of the mental
conflicts of its hero--or in its forest pictures of the free West,
which offer such a delicious repose to the mind, is full of happy
thoughts and turns of expression. Four lines of peculiar delicacy and
beauty recur to me as I write, too strongly to be passed by. They are
from a character of one of the martyr sisters.
‘And if she mingled with the festive train,
It was but as some melancholy star
Beholds the dance of shepherds on the plain,
In its bright stillness present, though afar.’
“But the entire episode of ‘Queen-like Teresa--radiant Inez,’ is
wrought up with a nerve and an impulse which men of renown have failed
to reach. The death of the latter, if, perhaps, it be a little too
romantic for the stern realities of the scene, is so beautifully
told, that it cannot be read without strong feeling, nor carelessly
remembered. And most beautiful, too, are the sudden outbursts of
thankfulness--of the quick happy consciousness of liberty with which
the narrator of this ghastly sacrifice interrupts the tale, to
reassure himself, ‘Sport on, my happy child! for thou art free.’ The
character of the convert’s wife, Leonor, devotedly clinging to his
fortunes, without a reproach or a murmur, while her heart trembles
before him as though she were in the presence of a lost spirit, is one
of those in which Mrs Hemans’ individual mode of thought and manner of
expression are most happily impersonated. As a whole, she was hardly
wrong in her own estimate of this poem; and, on recently turning to
it, I have been surprised to find how well it bears the tests and
trials with which it is only either fit or rational to examine works
of the highest order of mind.”--Chorley’s _Memorials of Mrs Hemans_,
p. 126-7.
“If taste and elegance be titles to enduring fame, we might venture
securely to promise that rich boon to the author before us, who adds
to those great merits a tenderness and loftiness of feeling, and an
ethereal purity of sentiment, which could only emanate from the soul
of a woman. She must beware of becoming too voluminous, and must not
venture again on any thing so long as ‘The Forest Sanctuary.’ But
if the next generation inherits our taste for short poems, we are
persuaded it will not readily allow her to be forgotten. For we do not
hesitate to say that she is, beyond all comparison, the most touching
and accomplished writer of occasional verses that our literature has
yet to boast of.”--Lord Jeffrey, in _Edinburgh Review_, October 1829.]
[311] “Letters from Spain by Don Leucadio Doblado.”
LAYS OF MANY LANDS.
[The following pieces may so far be considered a series, as each is
intended to be commemorative of some national recollection, popular
custom, or tradition. The idea was suggested by Harder’s “_Stimmen
der Völker in Liedern_;” the execution is, however, different, as the
poems in his collection are chiefly translations.]
MOORISH BRIDAL-SONG.
[“It is a custom among the Moors, that a female who dies unmarried is
clothed for interment in wedding apparel, and the bridal-song is sung
over her remains before they are borne from her home.”--_Narrative of
a Ten Years’ Residence in Tripoli, by the Sister-in-law of Mr Tully._]
The citron-groves their fruit and flowers were strewing
Around a Moorish palace, while the sigh
Of low sweet summer winds the branches wooing
With music through their shadowy bowers went by;
Music and voices, from the marble halls
Through the leaves gleaming, and the fountain-falls.
A song of joy, a bridal-song came swelling
To blend with fragrance in those southern shades,
And told of feasts within the stately dwelling,
Bright lamps, and dancing steps, and gem-crown’d maids;
And thus it flow’d:--yet something in the lay
Belong’d to sadness, as it died away.
“The bride comes forth! her tears no more are falling
To leave the chamber of her infant years;
Kind voices from a distant home are calling;
She comes like day-spring--she hath done with tears;
Now must her dark eye shine on other flowers,
Her soft smile gladden other hearts than ours!--
Pour the rich odours round!
“We haste! the chosen and the lovely bringing;
Love still goes with her from her place of birth;
Deep, silent joy within her soul is springing,
Though in her glance the light no more is mirth!
Her beauty leaves us in its rosy years;
Her sisters weep--but she hath done with tears!--
Now may the timbrel sound!”
Know’st thou for _whom_ they sang the bridal numbers?--
One, whose rich tresses were to wave no more!
One, whose pale cheek soft winds, nor gentle slumbers,
Nor Love’s own sigh, to rose-tints might restore!
Her graceful ringlets o’er a bier were spread.
Weep for the young, the beautiful,--the dead!
THE BIRD’S RELEASE.
[The Indians of Bengal and of the coast of Malabar bring cages filled
with birds to the graves of their friends, over which they set the
birds at liberty. This custom is alluded to in the description of
Virginia’s funeral.--See _Paul and Virginia_.]
Go forth! for she is gone!
With the golden light of her wavy hair,
She is gone to the fields of the viewless air;
She hath left her dwelling lone!
Her voice hath pass’d away!
It hath pass’d away like a summer breeze,
When it leaves the hills for the far blue seas,
Where we may not trace its way.
Go forth, and like her be free!
With thy radiant wing, and thy glancing eye,
Thou hast all the range of the sunny sky,
And what is our grief to thee?
Is it aught e’en to her we mourn?
Doth she look on the tears by her kindred shed?
Doth she rest with the flowers o’er her gentle head,
Or float, on the light wind borne?
We know not--but she is gone!
Her step from the dance, her voice from the song,
And the smile of her eye from the festal throng;
She hath left her dwelling lone!
When the waves at sunset shine,
We may hear thy voice amidst thousands more,
In the scented woods of our glowing shore;
But we shall not know ’tis thine!
Even so with the loved one flown!
Her smile in the starlight may wander by,
Her breath may be near in the wind’s low sigh,
Around us--but all unknown.
Go forth! we have loosed thy chain!
We may deck thy cage with the richest flowers
Which the bright day rears in our Eastern bowers;
But thou wilt not be lured again.
Even thus may the summer pour
All fragrant things on the land’s green breast,
And the glorious earth like a bride be dress’d,
But it wins _her_ back no more!
THE SWORD OF THE TOMB.
A NORTHERN LEGEND.
[The idea of this ballad is taken from a scene in _Starkother_, a
tragedy by the Danish poet Ochlenschlager. The sepulchral fire here
alluded to, and supposed to guard the ashes of deceased heroes, is
frequently mentioned in the Northern Sagas. Severe sufferings to
the departed spirit were supposed by the Scandinavian mythologists
to be the consequence of any profanation of the sepulchre.--See
Ochlenschlager’s _Plays_.]
“Voice of the gifted elder time!
Voice of the charm and the Runic rhyme!
Speak! from the shades and the depths disclose
How Sigurd may vanquish his mortal foes;
Voice of the buried past!
Voice of the grave! ’tis the mighty hour
When night with her stars and dreams hath power,
And my step hath been soundless on the snows,
And the spell I have sung hath laid repose
On the billow and the blast.”
Then the torrents of the North
And the forest pines were still,
While a hollow chant came forth
From the dark sepulchral hill.
“There shines no sun midst the hidden dead,
But where the day looks not the brave may tread;
There is heard no song, and no mead is pour’d,